


Playback Loop

by jujubiest



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crush, bisexual Fitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphonso is part of After, and so at first Fitz just plain doesn't like him.</p><p>Then he kind of does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playback Loop

**Author's Note:**

> Possible spoilers through "A Hen in the Wolf House."

Fitz has always had something of a one track mind.

He just…gets stuck on something, an idea or a thought or a problem. And he can’t stop until he’s got it all untangled and spread out in front of him and figured out.

Lately, though…since the incident…his thoughts have taken on strange forms. Before, he could stop, redirect, refocus if he needed to. But now it’s like a scratched record playing on an endless loop: words missing, or left in the wrong places, the meanings have all fallen out of his head. They fled the sinking ship and they won’t come back, even now that the ship is on land again.

The first is Simmons. She leaves, and Fitz knows she’s gone, somewhere in the waterlogged data bank he  _knows_. But she’s still there, too, on a loop, looking so perfectly like herself, sounding so perfectly like herself. In this single thing there are no skips, no jumps or blanks…so Fitz just lets it play. She fills in the blanks for him sometimes; other times he almost feels like she makes them worse. If she just waited, just gave him a moment…the word would leap into his mind and out of his mouth. Mostly he’s grateful; grateful to still have her, so seemingly real. Grateful he still knows the difference, however little it may mean to him.

The second is Mack. Alphonso Mackenzie. He’s new; he’s from After. That’s how Fitz separates it out: Before, and After. Before was a plane full of people he trusted and loved, science and adventure and doing something good in the world. After is uncertain, and lonely, and so frustrating. After is not knowing the word for the job that Alphonso does, even though he knows he used to, he knows he should. Alphonso is part of After, and so at first Fitz just plain doesn’t like him.

Then he kind of does. Simmons—the one he sees, not the real one—has a point. Skye, May…they talk to him like he’s broken, because they know what he was like Before. But Alphonso has only ever known After Fitz, and he talks to him like he’s fine the way he is. He listens for what After Fitz is saying, instead of listening for what Before Fitz  _would_  have said. He doesn’t just let him drift away when he gets distracted by Simmons, or too frustrated to keep going. He keeps pulling him back in, asking questions, trying to understand. He keeps expecting After Fitz to know things, do things. It sparks something in him; maybe hope, maybe rage. He doesn’t care because it catches, lights.

And that’s when his brain gets stuck in a strange new loop. Simmons disappears, and in her place is Alphonso. Except that he’s real, and he notices when Fitz gets distracted watching him, listening to him. He never says anything; just grins and keeps talking, or working. When he blurts out the short, painful story of the one and only person he’s ever really loved over a round of celebratory beers, Alphonso gives him a small smile, and a nod, and they toast to moving on. Fitz wonders if he’s already started, without even meaning to. That smile makes him feel warm all over.

Then again, it could just be the beer.


End file.
